Staal ends long scoring drought, Panthers dump Capitals 6-3
WASHINGTON >> Veteran defenseman Marc Staal ended a 75-game goal drought, captain Aleksander Barkov also scored and the Florida Panthers held on to beat the Washington Capitals 6-3 Thursday night in a big game in the Eastern Conference wild-card race.
Florida pulled even with Washington at 62 points. The Capitals are ahead in the standings because they’ve played one fewer game.
Along with Staal scoring for the first time since March 15, 2022, when he was with Detroit, fellow defenseman Gustav Forsling and Colin White beat Darcy Kuemper, who stopped 34 shots. Anton Lundell and Sam Reinhart each added an empty-netter to seal it. Sergei Bobrovsky had 29 saves.
Dylan Strome scored in the second period to get Washington on the board, and Nicklas Backstrom got one on the power play in the third. Evgeny Kuznetsov scored with 2:32 remaining in regulation with Kuemper pulled for an extra attacker.
Washington played without captain and leading goal-scorer Alex Ovechkin, who is away after the death of his father, Mikhail.
BLUE JACKETS 3, JETS 1 >> Kent Johnson’s third-period goal was the tiebreaker, Joonas Korpisalo had 36 saves and Columbus rallied to beat Winnipeg.
The Blue Jackets overcame a terrible first period, tying a seasonlow with just two shots on goal in the frame. They tied the game in the second period and moved ahead at 9:40 of the third with Johnson’s shot through a screen seconds after a power play had ended.
Patrik Laine also scored for Columbus, and Boone Jenner scored into an empty net with 3 seconds left in the game.
Kyle Connor scored for the Jets, and David Rittich had 21 saves. HURRICANES 6, CANADIENS 2 >> Seth Jarvis had his first career hat trick and Carolina scored three times in the first five minutes of the third period in a win over Montreal.
Jarvis scored in the first and third periods for his first multigoal game of the season and capped his night with a short-handed goal with 19.8 seconds left.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal also scored for the Hurricanes, winner of nine of their last 10 games. Antti Raanta made 20 saves.
Michael Pezzetta and Rafael Harvey-Pinard scored for the Canadiens, whose three-game winning streak ended in the opener of a four-game trip. Sam Montembeault stopped 20 shots.